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VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican’s foreign secretary ended a five-day trip to Cuba with a “cordial, respectful and continuous” talk with President Raul Castro on Sunday (June 20). The meeting between Castro and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti underscored the increasingly significant role of the Catholic Church in the communist nation and prompted local hopes of a…

BATON ROUGE, La. (RNS) The Louisiana House approved and sent to Gov. Bobby Jindal on Thursday (June 17) a revived bill that would allow people qualified to carry concealed weapons to tote them to their house of worship. Lawmakers voted 64-26 for a bill that would give church, mosque or synagogue leaders the authority to…

(RNS) Bonfires, drum circles, dancing, candlelit meditation and other ceremonial rituals help usher in the summer solstice at the annual Pagan Spirit Gathering, now in its 30th year in the United States. Along with celebrating the longest day of the year on Monday (June 21), this year’s weeklong festival at a campground in Salem, Mo.,…

(RNS)Q: When is a hat more than a hat? A: When the hat is a bishop’s miter, and belongs to the female head of the Episcopal Church, symbolizing her rank in a church hierarchy dominated by men. In a public snub that’s being dubbed “mitergate,” Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was told not to…

(RNS) An Israeli rabbi and his wife were appointed to continue the work of Jewish emissaries who were killed during the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Rabbi Chanoch Gechtman and his wife, Leiky, will move to India’s financial capital to represent Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox movement that promotes an observant form of the Jewish…

(RNS) Wiretaps. Informants. Financial records. They all play vital roles in U.S. government investigations to prevent terrorist attacks. But in the last six months, another investigative tool has received increased attention: cooperation from suspects’ families. Three times since December — most recently on June 5, when two New Jersey men were apprehended at New York’s…

(RNS/ENInews) The captain of France’s national soccer team is said to have blamed noise from the “vuvuzela” for keeping his team awake at night and contributing to a poor match against Uruguay in the World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa. But Tinyiko Maluleke, president of the South African Council of Churches, told Ecumenical News…

WASHINGTON (RNS) Sikh and Muslim groups are pushing Congress to pass a bill prohibiting racial profiling that’s been languishing for more than nine years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Two groups, Muslim Advocates and the Sikh Coalition, are seeking passage of the End Racial Profiling Act, which was first introduced in 2001 and is currently…

WASHINGTON (RNS) It took Dr. Hanna Klaus four years and $1.6 million in federal funding, but she and her team have preached abstinence to more than 23,000 African teenagers. It’s the only way to curb the AIDS epidemic that’s sweeping that continent, said Klaus, executive director of Teen Star, based just outside Washington in Bethesda,…

(RNS) Southern Baptists issued a veiled but sharp critique of the nation’s oil companies on Wednesday (June 16), saying “all industries are … accountable to higher standards than to profit alone.” Members of the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Orlando, Fla., said the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a timely…
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